Monday, July 23, 2012

Cycle magazine's Phil Schilling wrote a beautiful story about the CBX, 30 years ago. Three decades on, it's a story that needs to be retold...

Powered by a 1,047cc, 105bhp six-cylinder engine, the late-1970s/early-1980s Honda CBX was an intriguing mix of superbike and sports-tourer. Back in July 1982, Phil Schilling wrote about the bike for Cycle magazine. It’s a beautifully written piece that tells the remarkable story of the CBX, a motorcycle we love so very much. Schilling’s story on the CBX was published exactly three decades ago, which means a lot of our readers probably never had the opportunity to read it. So if you love the CBX, here’s your chance to enjoy one of the best written articles about that magnificent machine:

Honda's CBX was a grabber from the start. In the desert darkness, along a deserted road, you hear again the rushed whisper that six cylinders and 24 valves make at 75mph, and you remember again the first time you rode a CBX. Strange, isn't it, how after tens and hundreds of test machines, you can recall how it was with the clarity and resolution of the day just past. Maybe it's the soft, backlit red glow from the instruments; the CBX had the dials first done in that motif, and this visual cue connects again and again with that first CBX.

Yet that could be only part of it. Because in so many ways the CBX is a memorable machine, and not necessarily in a functional way either. The CBX announces itself as an exotic – restrained but with an audacious self-confidence. See Me! Six cylinders! Twenty-four valves! Six carburetors! Presence. A motorcycle that you don't look through or past. See and look again. You can't say that about many Hondas.